Antonin Miller Jr. (laughingatdeath) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-10-14 21:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-07-30 |
When I say that I won't leave -
Who: Antonin and Circe
Where: Circe's apartment
When: Way too early morning
Warning: Disturbing imagery involving lamia feeding habits.
Antonin had practically sulked his way through his shift. It was a good thing he didn’t have to work with a partner just yet because said partner wouldn’t have had a very eventful time. For once Antonin, who was known for his smile and easy-going nature, was genuinely sullen. Ulysses Gibbon was in town and that wasn’t ever good, but Circe’d gone off to work before he could pass the news on and to make it even worse, Zaviar was definitely mad at him. Yeah, Antonin’d done that all on his own but it didn’t mean he was going to be happy about it. Rather the opposite. Half a dozen times at least he’d needed to put his phone away to ensure that he didn’t text Zaviar again. This was reminding him of a similar experience in college with one of his friends and a girl he’d broken up with, but Antonin frowned at the similarities and finally just shut the phone off and tossed it in his glovebox. If anyone needed him for the rest of the day then they could just bugger off and find someone else to do it.
Pressing the back of his head against the seat, Antonin hit the steering wheel before climbing out of the car. Hands in his pockets he walked up to Circe’s apartment. He did something he didn’t really like to do with her and only rarely did, just searched out for the trail of thoughts that belonged to her, and then searched around to make sure hers were the only ones there. Breathing out a sigh of relief at the silence that greeted him he dug into his pockets and pulled out his keys, wondering why he’d even put them away in the first place, and flipped until he found the newest addition and opened up the door. Making sure to lock it he set his keys on the counter and glanced around. Well she wasn’t out here, but there was a light coming from the bedroom. Slipping his shoes off, he padded to the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Sure he’d known she was there but it was still nice to have a confirmation. Even if she was stretched out in her lamia form it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. And he was pretty sure his skin was about to try sweating off. “Glad to see you’re keeping warm.” Understatement.
She was in distress and babies were a little like ice cream. They helped to deal with the distress. All things considered, it had been a gloriously bloody mess the night before once the sixth fetus had been swallowed but she’d cleaned up for the most part and the bag that had contained the little snacks had been thrown away with the trash. For all anyone cared, it could have been a plastic bag containing some steak. People hardly knew what placenta looked like even if they had been encased in it for nine months. Lifting her head to look up at Antonin, she blinked lazily. She’d definitely overfed the night before and she was in an incredibly languid state of being. A food coma from eating babies, if you will. The slowed state of her body helped to deal with her panic, however, and it was harder to think about her husband being into town when all she could think about was how wonderfully full she felt. “Helpsss with the digessstion,” Circe said slowly, hissing her sssss’s. She wiped the edges of her mouth and came away with a few smears of blood across the back of her hand.
It took an incredible amount of focus to actually shift back into her human form and it hurt even more than usual too. Her stomach felt like it would tear. “You can turn it down, if you like,” Circe said, motioning towards the thermostat controls in her room. Completely naked, she rolled to sit up, blond hair sticking to the side of her face from the sweat produced by the heat. It took her a moment to regain her sense of balance. A hand flew to her mouth as she realized what a bad idea sitting up had been while she was still incredibly full. With a speed and agility she was surprised to possess considering her current state of fullness, she leapt towards the bathroom and positioned herself in front of the toilet in time for it to catch still undigested masses of blood and flesh...and what seemed like possibly a small arm. She’d never hated her human form more than in this exact moment because...she was wasting perfectly good food. Oh, fuck.
She’d eaten, that much was clear from the blood and what she said, and Antonin didn’t even need to ask what she’d eaten because a glance after her into the bathroom told him all that he needed to know. Shrugging out of the jacket he’d worn and tossing it onto a chair he lowered the temperature only a few degrees before shifting to lean against the bathroom door. He’d grown up playing with dead things and dissecting the still-living ones sometimes to figure out how they worked on the inside so that he could, figuratively, work better with them when they were dead. Seeing something like a tiny arm didn’t bother him all that much. Circe was a lamia, she ate babies, it was just what she did. He didn’t care. Though it seemed like she’d gone and overindulged herself a little too much this time.
“Your eyes were bigger than your stomach,” Antonin remarked, something that his mother’d always say whenever he couldn’t finish what was on his plate. It wasn’t time for her to moult so... just because? Antonin doubted it, he knew of a remarkably good reason for Circe to gorge herself on something she enjoyed and it’d only arrived in town recently. So she knows. “Do you want a glass of water? Going to be alright?”
The tile was cold under her bare legs and she had to fight to resist the urge to lean her face against the toilet seat. Despite what the said about toilets being cleaner than your kitchen counter, as a doctor, she knew that was bullshit. Once she was certain nothing more was going to come up, she pulled back and looked up at Antonin through bleary eyes. She wasn’t much of a crier but the news that Ulysses was here had been enough to send her into some form of an emotional crisis the night before. After all, it was always heartbreaking when you found out that the one thing you thought you’d escaped was now in your backyard and knew where you worked. She wasn’t scared, necessarily, but she knew she couldn’t kill him either. Running was really the only option once she thought about it. She reached over to flush the foul-smelling things away. There was something obviously wrong when the thought of newborn babes were not appetizing anymore.
She didn’t quite have the strength to stand up at the moment, so she simply sat there and endured the cold tile. “He’s here,” she whispered at Antonin, though she somehow knew that he already knew as well. She sighed as she resigned herself to the fact that she was never going to be able to get rid of him. After a while, she rose rather shakily onto her feet and went to the sink to brush her teeth. Hygiene. It was important to someone in her profession.
Yes, he was, and Circe knowing wasn’t a good thing. Okay it was necessary that she know but Antonin didn’t know how she’d found out. Madeleine didn’t know her well enough to have texted like she did him and Zaviar would swallow his own tail before he did something like that. So who was left? Ulysses himself. No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t show up just to let Circe see him and then leave her to return to her own place. Bastard wasn’t that giving and besides, he knew that he was there.
“I know,” Antonin admitted, watching her stand, hands twitching to help her because she didn’t look steady on her feet at all. “Madeleine told me.” Because Zaviar told her to. While Circe brushed her teeth he went to retrieve a glass of water like he’d offered and if she didn’t drink it then he would. Antonin could’ve accepted that his cousin had done it on his own but why on earth would she have seen Ulysses? The two hadn’t really interacted in London that he was ever aware of and he tended to be aware of those things since he considered thoughts to be his own personal public archive of information. Speaking of, he was going to need to stop by Madeleine’s house and see why she hated him. Maybe something Zaviar had said or maybe she’d met him after all. The latter thought wasn’t very encouraging and Antonin found that he didn’t like the idea of Ulysses being anywhere near his cousin one bit. He was the one who was supposed to be upsetting her and causing her distress, not anyone else. That took all the fun out of it for him. Stepping up next to her when he saw that she was done he offered the water before reaching up to smooth back several pieces of hair. “How’d you find out?”
Circe paused to watch Antonin’s reflection in the mirror when he said Madeleine had told him. As he left to presumably get the glass of water he had offered, she wondered why her husband would go to Madeleine. She wasn’t aware that they were connected at all. In that case...was the fire elemental trying to sell her out, then? No, then she wouldn’t tell Antonin because Zaviar’d figure that Antonin would get his brains blown out by her husband or maybe he was hoping Antonin would end her husband....but still. Why risk Antonin? She rinsed her mouth out with water before dropping her toothbrush back in its holder. Turning around to lean against the counter, cupped her own face in her hands as she tried to stop thinking. It was making her queasy again and she really didn’t want to have to throw up any more of her sustenance. It was difficult enough to acquire as it was. She didn’t need to go wasting it.
Looking up when Antonin came back, she took the glass from him and took a few sips before setting it into the counter to lean against Antonin. Security was what she needed right now and Antonin was about as close as she could get to that. Leaning her cheek against his chest, she looked into her bedroom. She looked at her bed where she’d spent nights with Antonin in the foolish belief that it was just the two of them now and they could have the happy ending they deserved. “He came by the hospital and left me a note,” she answered, slipping the tips of her fingers into his front pockets. It was a comfort thing, something that her dad had always let her do whenever they were in a big crowd and she was afraid of getting lost. If Circe were to be honest with herself, she wasn’t scared Ulysses was here. She wasn’t even really upset that he was here. She was...despairing that she’d allowed herself to believe that she could finally be with Antonin the way she wanted to be and the way he deserved from her but it had been snatched away from her again.
This wasn’t normal. Antonin was aware that a lot of things in his life weren’t normal by anyone else’s standards but they tended to have some sort of a form to follow and this was stepping outside of the boundaries of that and then rearranging them into some sort of maze he wasn’t sure he knew how to wind his way through. He’d expected anger or something, not this. His arms automatically went around Circe and he kept her close, pressing a kiss against the top of her head before he rested his cheek there. He didn’t like this. Ulysses didn’t have a place in their world anymore and Antonin didn’t care if the man had any sort of a reason to be in the same city as them, he didn’t belong there.
Antonin’s jaw tightened and he found himself glaring at nothing. He’d been where she worked then. At least he hadn’t touched her. Yet, a silent voice added in his mind. But you know him, bleeder doesn’t know how to keep his hands to himself. He wanted to tell Circe not to think about it and that it’d be okay but he didn’t know whether he should actually say that. Last time, in England, it hadn’t been. But it won’t be like that here. Antonin wasn’t on speaking terms with Zaviar so how could he be expected to follow an order that he’d considered null and void since his move across the pond? It didn’t count anymore and so long as Antonin didn’t pay attention to him then he wouldn’t get told it again. “It’s...” Why were the words catching in his throat? He squeezed his eyes shut and kissed the top of her head again. “It’s going to be fine.” Somehow. “It won’t happen again.” He wouldn’t let it.
He was toying with her. Circe knew her husband enough to know that he’d come for what he viewed as his and wouldn’t go away until he had got it. It had been easy enough for him last time. All things considered, it should have been surprising that he’d let her stay away for so long and get so far away. No one should have really expected anything less from Mr. Ulysses Gibbon. She should just tear his throat out. But she couldn’t and she knew that. Curling her fingers inside Antonin’s pockets, she figured she’d have to leave with him at some point. There was really no use being so delusional, was there? He had practically bought her with a wedding and she was really kind of his. It was just another weekend. She looked up at Antonin. Another brief snippet of time they had stolen from whatever was left of her marriage. It was as if her husband had only gone for a very long period of time this round but he was coming back and it was time for Antonin to go.
Circe closed her eyes to accept the kiss on her forehead but slipped her fingers out of his pocket to step away. “Of course it will. It’s always worked out, hasn’t it?” she said, her thoughts distant. “You’ll sneak out and he’ll come back to reclaim what’s his...of course. It’s not complicated,” she added, when complicated was all it really was. What was she supposed to say now? You have to go now. I’ll call you when he leaves town again....you have to go now. But she couldn’t even begin to form the sentence to make Antonin go away. There was a buzzing in Circe’s head where her thought process should have been. But it was so difficult to think when he was involved. When either of them were involved.
Antonin heard what Circe was saying but his mind wasn’t registering it. Because his mind wasn’t stuck on the idea that things were going to be the same, because they weren’t. He wouldn’t let them be. Couldn’t let them. He had stood up to Zaviar about Circe and if he could do that then he sure as hell could deal with Ulysses. The man had a hold over Circe, that was true, but he had no such influence over Antonin. And I’m going to break his hold. Breaking him should work.
“He’s not coming to claim anything because there’s nothing here that’s his,” Antonin managed to say, his voice a little rough as he shook his head. Circe didn’t need to talk like ever again, much less thinking like it. “Because I’m not sneaking out, Circe, I’m not leaving you.” He knew all of the things that Ulysses had done because it was impossible to not slip sometimes and see into Circe’s mind, to see the reasons for the insanity that’d taken over. Who knew if she was even really listening to what he said anymore, he’d still say it and mean it and keep to it. A promise was a promise. He reached back out for her, tugging lightly back towards the bedroom where it was warmer. “Come to bed with me and sleep, you’ll be able to think better in the morning.” He’d be able to think better then.
She didn’t believe him. Ulysses always got what he wanted and he really wouldn’t stop at anything. Hope was a cruel little thing, pretending to be joy and happiness when all it really was was false illusions about wishes. And Circe didn’t have dreams or wishes. That was for silly little girls who still had their fathers. But Antonin could do whatever he wanted. He could stay or he could go. That had always been his option and his prerogative. As long as she’d told him Ulysses was coming, that was her part of the agreement. Where he was when Ulysses came was his decision. She let him take her hand, however, letting him take her back to her bedroom. Sleep sounded like a good idea. The six babies had not been but in the morning it would be better. And the added heat from Antonin would help.
Once they were settled in bed, Circe rolled around to face Antonin and gave him a strangely normal kiss. No biting, no scratching, just what it was. While she refused to give it a name, there was real affection for Antonin there. And it was difficult to imagine life without him but if it wasn’t meant to be, then it wasn’t. She’d simply taken that option into consideration. She wasn’t necessarily heartless, she just didn’t believe in setting yourself up for disappointment. Things were so much easier to deal with when you didn’t have expectations.
Sometimes, Antonin had a moment where he wondered he tried so hard. They were always brief and very rarely voiced like the other night in his drunken stupor, but they came. Usually when she didn’t seem to care if he stayed or went but it’d last for a second and then it was gone. Like when he was a kid and wondered whether or not he should go and play with his knives and nearby pets. Wrong for everyone else, right for him, and he knew it even if no one else got it. And sure Ulysses was there and he was bothered by it but she was following Circe’s lead and not saying anything about it anymore. He was content to curl up under the blankets with her, a little surprised at the kiss she gave him. “Sleep well, Circe,” he murmured, though he knew that he wasn’t going to. Just in case someone did come around.